RSS Feed
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
UPS at 40 in T'ville
Tuesday, a group of about 15 men gathered at the UPS station in Thomasville to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the company's arrival in Thomasville. "The weather was as nice as it was Tuesday back then," said Bill Finkley remembering that first day on Feb. 13, 1967. The work started at Don Newton's Standard Service Station on Hwy. 43, with all of two packages to deliver. "At that time, I was thinking, this company will never make it," Finkley said.
Before long, they were working 12-hour days, putting in 300 miles per day in their delivery vans. When the group was gathered Wednesday morning at the UPS center, Webb recalled, "we'd be at the UPS Delmar right about now, and then we'd be wide open the rest of the day." They sorted packages on a piece of plywood set atop two sawhorses. "Whenever it rained, we'd have to stop sorting package and go inside to wait for it to stop," Finkley said. They started with two vans and a Uhaul truck. They were soon joined by Jerry Edwards, who took a pay cut from working for the Post Office to work for $1.80 per hour for the fledgling operation. "I thought, what have I gotten myself into," Edwards said. The men reminisced about old times, and visited with some of the current drivers who they had worked with before retiring. "They'd probably fire me now for that," Webb joked, remembering how he used to drive with the door open. The next few drivers added were James Creel, James Smith, Don Judge Anderson, Andy Burgess, George Braswell, Bud Lake, Alan Mosely, Don Newton, Mike Pope and Shaffer Truitt.
Today, according to the men, the UPS center in Thomasville delivers 2,600 packages on a typical day.
|
for larger version       Ads have a Patent Pending. Click Here for More Information |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
)
)
